


Childhood

by sparklight



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4166682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles/ficlets which were sort of meant to be headcanon exploration and more turned into proper fic. Various events from Luke's childhood on Tatooine, and Leia's on Alderaan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**He's a few weeks old when he experiences his first sandstorm.**

The baby in the crib isn't sleeping or listening to the growing roar of wind outside, though. The baby is wide awake and feeling _lonely_ despite the warm presences in the bed right beside the crib. They're familiar by now, and bestows all he needs on him, but there's something _missing_. 

He can't reach far enough to touch _any_ of what he - unknowingly - wants to reach. He doesn't have the understanding, words or concepts to shape the need inside into something that can be vocalised into even a simple wail to draw attention from either of his sleeping guardians.

The blazing blue familiarity which has been with him for longer than he's been _here_ is gone, too distant to touch. This is a knowledge unformed in the brain, known at another level entirely.

Tears and quiet, quiet baby whining peters off as the sandstorm grows louder and larger outside, however. The storm has an energy all its own, thrumming against the walls and around the baby. It's fierce and rough, teeth which would maul anything out in it, but in here... It hums. Against and through the walls there's a rhythm, and grain against grain creates a melody.

It's a song both physical and very much not, and the baby, distracted from the loneliness, giggles quietly as his eyes follow things which aren't physically there.

Tatooine may be vicious and unforgiving, a scouring light which only accepts what darkness that can survive _in_ it, but she loves her children.

The baby is soon asleep, and sleeps the whole night through for the first time since he was born.

 

**He's four the first time he asks about his parents.**

Uncle Owen's short, scowling answer is, "they're dead, Luke." and then there's a nearly imperceptible wince as Luke bites his lip and screws his eyes shut, _trying_ not to cry after a wide-eyed moment of silence. 

He hasn't ever thought that would be it, despite there only ever being Aunt and Uncle in the house. He drags in a sniffling breath through his nose when Uncle rests his large, callused hand on his head, awkwardly gentle, and then Aunt Beru sits down on the floor and picks him up, setting him down in her lap.

She's warm and dry, smelling of blue milk and like whatever she uses to bake bread with.

"They loved you a lot, Luke."

He cries, then, and isn't even sure _why_. He knows only that something _hurts_.

 

**He's six when he has the words and the context to ask why their family is so _small_.**

Of course, that's not the way he phrases it - he asks why, even if his mom and dad are dead, there's no grandparents, siblings, _cousins_. Of course, those aren't really the words, again, that he uses, but that's what he _means_. Deak, Windy and Biggs all have larger families, so why doesn't _he_?

Aunt and Uncle share a look that he doesn't understand, but their silence is enough to make him scowl and cross his arms, even as he waits for a reply. Uncle Owen finally sighs and tells him to sit down, and after he's done so, both Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen does as well. Her arm is around his shoulders and Uncle Owen has the very same look on his face he gets when he stares at the two stones out on groundlevel outside their house.

"Your father and your grandmother were slaves, Luke. That means---"

He shakes his head, quietly and quickly interrupting Uncle, because he _knows_. He's six, and he knows what _slave_ means. 

He also understands that _slaves_ cannot have families like those who _aren't_ slaves can. Like Deak, Windy, Biggs or... the three of them. Slaves don't get to have anything the people who owns them tell them they can't have, after all.

He doesn't ask for his mother, after this. They didn't mention her, and that means... he's not sure, exactly, what it means, but he knows there'll be no answers about his mom. So he doesn't ask, but he holds onto Aunt Beru's reassurance that 'they loved you a lot', since 'they' means his mom is included in that.

 

**He's eight the first time he gets lost in the desert.**

He's tired and thirsty and hungry and most of all _scared_ when the man in the big robe finds him, and the only reason he doesn't run screaming is because he doesn't have the same sort of head coverings he knows the Tusken have. 

Additionally, the man feels... okay. More than okay, he feels (sad, lonely, tired) _safe_ , a feeling that only strengthens as he wraps a cloth around his head to shield from the sun. The cloth is long enough Luke ends up wearing it wrapped around the rest of him as well, the end trailing down by his feet after the man asks if he can pick him up so they can get back to his Aunt and Uncle faster.

The man gives him water and then they walk - or rather, the man walks and Luke is curled up against him, arms around the man's neck.

There's a lot of yelling when they come back, waking Luke up and realising he's in his Aunt's warm, dry embrace. He buries his face in her throat and doesn't cry. After the man is gone, Uncle asks him _why_ he left. He's angry still and Luke bites his lip, hides against his Aunt again, but finally mumbles his reply into her shirt.

"Luke, you're going to have to repeat that," Aunt Beru says, patient and gentle now, even if he heard her yelling a little earlier too. Uncle Owen huffs and scowls and crosses his arms, but doesn't snap at him to explain himself again, rather waits for Luke to straighten up.

"... Was just gonna get somethin' to drink, _promise_ , but then the scared man took the bike and you can't take other people's stuff just 'cause you're _scared_. So I was gonna stop him..." Luke's staring at the floor between Aunt and Uncle as he mutters his reply, because he _knows_ he's not supposed to go off alone. 

He's not even sure _why_ he did it, now, just that the scared man couldn't just run off with the swoop like that...

"Luke---"

"Luke, honey. You should _always_ tell us first if you see someone in the house, taking anything or not, all right?" Aunt Beru interrupts Uncle Owen, talking over the sharp snap of his name, and Luke nods, still staring at the floor. He misses the look the adults share between them, and then the one they cast away, out of the house.

Uncle Owen sighs and Aunt Beru sets him down on the floor.

"Come with me, Luke," Uncle says and takes his hand, leading him to the garage with Aunt right behind them, "check the bike for me, will you?"

And the swoop bike _is_ there which doesn't make any sense _at all_ unless he missed the scared man looping back and giving the bike back? When he checks it over though, Luke bites his lip, looking from Aunt Beru to Uncle Owen and back at the swoop.

"Broken. It's... but I---" That doesn't make any sense _at all_ and his heart is hammering in his ears and--- Aunt picks him up then and gives him a hug tighter than he's ever gotten before, but he doesn't complain, just buries his face underneath her chin again and maybe there's a few tears too.

She gets him warm milk after that, and then tucks him into bed and he can't even protest, he's so confused and tired. He doesn't get a punishment for wandering off, and that, in the end, turns out to be more memorable than the reason he got lost in the desert in the first place. 

The second thing he remembers is that the next day they tell him how his grandmother died, and that his father, who was back visiting from his job at that point (he was a navigator on a spice freighter! A _real spaceship_!) used the swoop to hunt after the Sandpeople who'd taken her.

 

**He's almost ten by the time he can drive the landspeeder - more or less, anyway.**

He's too small to reach everything, but he knows how to drive it, even if Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen are confused as to _how_ he knows. It's not like they've shown him how yet. 

Luke just licks his lips, tongues the gap where he's missing two teeth and grins, saying he's been watching them. That's just as good as being shown and taught, right? Uncle Owen scowls at him, warning him that just because he knows how to drive doesn't mean he's going to be allowed to - _yet_ , anyway.

That's good enough for him.

 

**He's eleven when he takes the swoop bike out for a spin and gets grounded. For a _month_.**

Not like he _meant to_ (kind of, anyway), he'd just wanted to check if the repairs were good and to do that he had to start it, right? And he didn't even drive it _far_ , just a few circles around the homestead...

"LUKE! Get off that thing _this instant_!" Aunt Beru's _yelling_ and that, more than anything, is what startles him into killing the ignition and letting the swoop drift to a stop. She's angry enough that when she pulls him off the bike he almost falls to the ground, but she steadies him before he can and then carts him off towards the house.

"Aunt Beru, it's _okay_ , it's _working_ , see? I didn't meant to _ride it_ , I just wanted to check it _worked_ \---"

"Luke, please stop. Here."

She doesn't yell, after that. 

She hardly says _anything_ for the first half hour while she has him help her with dinner, and he's not sure if this is worse than Uncle Owen's yelling and scowling or not. So he does what she tells him to, head bowed... even if he's _frustrated_ too because he was _just_...

"Luke, swoop bikes are _dangerous_. You could've fallen off, or accidentally accelerated, or---" she rubs her face with one hand, _pausing_ there for a moment, and all his frustration runs off him, dries up like water poured on sand.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Beru," Luke mumbles, reaching out to fist his hand in her skirt and then she whirls around, kneels down and is hugging him, her nose in his hair.

"Don't _ever_ scare me like that again, Luke."

"Won't, Aunt Beru. Promise."

That's probably a lie, even if he doesn't intend it to be, and it doesn't stop Uncle Owen from nearly exploding when he comes back from tending the vaporators, and then he gets grounded. Which means he doesn't get to drive the landspeeder, at all, and he can't go see his friends, and, worst of all, he has to do chores with Uncle Owen.

Even worse than that is that the last thing sticks, even beyond the month-long grounding. Not that he has to do a lot of them, or that they take a lot of time at first, but _still_.

 

**He's twelve - it's his birthday, in fact, when Uncle Owen promises to teach him how to use a rifle.**

"Owen!" Aunt Beru _gasps_ , hand to her mouth, while he hugs Uncle Owen around the waist, too happy to register her reaction at first. He does peer up at her from under his lashes and bangs a second later, though, even when Uncle lays a hand on his shoulder.

"He needs to learn at _some_ point, Beru. And I'd rather he knows early on and can defend himself rather than the _alternative_." Uncle Owen doesn't need to spell out what the _alternative_ is - Tusken raids are a thing, and even if his Aunt and Uncle try to keep it quiet, they don't _lie_ to him either.

"But _already_? He's _twelve_ , Owen!" Aunt Beru shakes her head and there's something tight in her voice that makes Luke let go of Uncle Owen and hug _her_ instead, tilting his head back to look earnestly up at her.

"It's okay, Aunt Beru," he says with what he hopes is a reassuring grin, this time with no missing teeth, but the way her breath catches he's not sure he managed it. Before he can try to fix it, however, Uncle Owen's handing him his other presents.

"Go play, all right? And remember you have chores tomorrow!"

He can't _quite_ help the huff at the reminder of his _chores_ , but his presents and Uncle Owen's promise of _rifle training_ is enough to smooth over the annoyance, and he skips away to his room.

Not before he overhears some of what Aunt and Uncle are talking about, though.

"Beru, love---"

"Owen, _you're_ the one always saying he's so much like his father, and _now_ you want to teach him how to use a rifle? He's a _child_!"

Uncle Owen sighs, and there's the sound of movement - Luke's pretty sure they're hugging, now.

"I _know_ , Beru. But he's a child of Tatooine, and, father or not, he needs to know how to defend himself in an emergency."

Luke _almost_ stays to listen to the answer, but decides to leave. Eavesdropping is wrong, and while he'd love to stay to see if they're going to say anymore about his father, he also has the distinct feeling that they _won't_.

 

**He's fifteen when he gets his own rifle _and_ a used Skyhopper.**

The rifle is his unconditionally - except his excitement is considerably dimmed when Uncle Owen says that he's being given it to help him stay safe during his chores. This way, he can be sent out alone, and further out on the farm and still be safe. Luke grimaces, annoyed. Sure, he's... sort of pleased at getting to take a greater responsibility in the farm and its tasks, but he doesn't _like_ those chores and the fact that his gift is tied to _that_ sort of... sours it.

What definitely _isn't_ soured is when Owen tells him he'll help him get a Skyhopper, though.

"You--- _Really_?" Luke grins, excitement and happiness washing away his earlier annoyance, and Uncle Owen has a _very_ reluctant smile on his face. Aunt Beru's smiling as well, much less reluctantly. Compared to the questionable gift of rifle training and the rifle, while flying is certainly not _risk-free_ , she minds this much less.

"Yeah. A _used_ one, mind, and you're gonna have to lay down some credits yourself," Uncle Owen says, a finger in the air. Luke doesn't even _care_.

It takes little over half a year before he has enough credits from exterminating womp rats (with his new rifle) for the Anchorhead community before Uncle Owen will start looking for a Skyhopper with him. 

The one they find is beat up, but not from being _old_. Rather, the seller tells them with a snort, apparently the previous owner was some rich brat in Bestine who flew it once or twice and then crashed it, selling it rather than having it repaired.

And it _does_ need repairs, and quite a lot of them.

It's almost enough to discourage him, despite how much he likes fixing things (when they're not moisture vaporators), but Biggs says he'll help, and Biggs' father helps too. Even Uncle Owen sticks his head in a few times, though mostly to quietly praise his work, which... well, it certainly settles a warm glow in the pit of his stomach, since Uncle Owen doesn't praise him often for _anything_. It still takes a few more months before the T-16 is flightworthy, but Luke hasn't been prouder of himself when it _is_.

The first flight is short - just around the farm in ever-widening circles and a bit up in the atmosphere, but Luke is _hooked_. Biggs hasn't let him fly his Skyhopper alone, before, and _nothing_ can compare to controlling a flying craft by yourself. 

It feels... right. 

The air currents, the wings sticking out to the sides, the three-dimensional space he's moving in... The controls feel natural, and he just wishes he could go _further_.

He's not even sure what sort of _further_ that is, beyond into open space, but that yearning is there.

He almost shoots off over the sands during his first flight test, but remembers not to and finally sets it down outside the homestead again, sand whirling around the Skyhopper. He has flown for the first time, and when Aunt Beru comes to hug him, she catches his face between his hands and _stares_ at him. 

Something flickers in her eyes - _around_ her - and then she smiles. It's a little sad.

"Your father would be proud, Luke. _We_ are proud," Aunt Beru says, the latter loud enough for Uncle Owen to grunt in agreement, and Luke can _tell_ he's vaguely regretting this whole thing with the Skyhopper. He still squeezes his shoulder, though.

 

**He's almost seventeen when he threads the Needle for the first time.**

It's _exhilarating_ , a little terrifying and he'll _never_ tell his Aunt and Uncle that he did it. Not that he needs to; Biggs' whoops and the slap on his back is more than enough praise. Even if he immediately follows it up with warning about how Luke is absolutely crazy and should _watch it_.

"You may already be one of the best bush pilots in the Outer Rim, Luke, but don't _push it_ , all right?" Biggs says, and this time he's squeezing his shoulder with far more care. Luke just snorts and blows his hair out of his eyes.

"Come on, Biggs, you know me!"

"Yeah, I _do_ , Skywalker. That's why I'm worried." But he grins after that and challenges him to another race - this time with the additional condition of 'five dead womp rats' as well. Of course he takes that bet.

 

**He's eighteen and can nail a womp rat while barrelling through Beggar's Canyon at full speed.**

He's also threaded the Needle five times by now, but only two of those has had any sort of audience. Not that he _cares_ ; it's enough that _he_ knows he can do it, and that the first time wasn't a fluke. It's not as fun racing when Biggs isn't around, though, and Uncle Owen keeps making him put off the Academy application.

It's so _frustrating_ and he doesn't want to be stuck on this planet _forever_! 

He knows he can't leave Uncle Owen until he has all the help he needs with the farm, but... His Uncle keeps making him put off that application, and the frustration _burns_ through him and he just wants to be _somewhere else_.

He's not even sure what that 'somewhere else' would be, just... away. It's an itch, a building _something_ underneath his skin, like the way he sometimes just _knows_ things. Like he knows he can't - won't - stay on Tatooine forever, but that's a given. The question is _when_ he gets to leave this forsaken dustball.

The answer to that, a few months later, is "sooner than he thought and not at all _as_ he thought". 

By then, shooting womp rats in Beggar's Canyon will be far from his mind. Right now, however, it's his best shot aside from going to Tosche Station and meeting up with his friends at having some fun. 

Because even as frustrated as he is, flying is the _greatest thing ever_.


	2. Chapter 2

**He's well over five but not yet six the first time he meets the boy that will become his best friend.**

Aunt and Uncle are talking with the other adults, and while he'd sat at Aunt Beru's feet for a while, he's bored now. Uncle only patted him on the head and shooed him away when he tugged on his pants leg to ask when they would be _done_ , so Luke took that gesture to heart and is now exploring.

Most of the rooms are empty and boring, even if everything looks nicer than home.

The next room he comes upon, though... there's a boy in there. Peering at the dark-haired boy from the doorway, Luke hesitates because that other boy is _so old_ (he's barely a handful of years older). He also looks very cool in his neat shirt and pants, nothing like the rather bulky and offwhite things Luke's wearing.

The boy suddenly looks up from the toy he's bent over, expression going from annoyed to confused to sort of... annoyed, again. He still waves Luke inside, though.

"D'you need help?" Luke asks, head cocked and the boy looks up again, blinking.

"It's _broken_ and it's got complicated stuff in it," the boy says, frowning. Luke smiles and sits down across from the older boy, holding his hand out.

"I'll help."

The boy stares at him for several moments and then _sighs_ , handing over the toy ship.

"Guess you can't mess it up _more_. I'm Biggs."

"Luke!" he grins and bends down over the toy, and while Biggs has to go get him some tools, half an hour later the little toy ship is hovering all by itself as it _should_. The rest of the stay isn't boring at all.

 

**He's eight - two days after his birthday - the first time he sees a swoop gang.**

Luke's walking backwards with a bag in his arms, grinning up at Uncle Owen's frown and Aunt Beru's exasperated fondness as they leave the shop when the ground trembles beneath him.

"Luke, look out!"

Uncle Owen yanks him back - or rather, forwards - before he can try and turn around to look, but there's still a sharp draft of wind snapping against his back, engine roar in his ears and heat radiated off metal on his clothes and skin. Blinking, he turns around in Uncle Owen's grasp in time to see ten other swoop bikes roar past them.

"Owen..." Aunt Beru murmurs, and she's up tight next to Uncle Owen, who has his arm around her as he scowls at the dozen bikes circling out on the street.

" _Swoop gang_. We'll just wait for them to---"

Another group thunders in, their colours different from the first bunch, and suddenly the air is _thick_. Not just from Aunt and Uncle, backing up a little further into the shop, but from the people in the shop behind him, the ones still out on the street who are now scurrying away. Luke can't quite put his finger on what that tension is, but it makes his stomach knot.

"We need to leave," Aunt Beru's voice is tight, high, and now they're inside the shop again, the door swooping closed, the air filled with tight, quiet murmurs.

"We have to wait, Beru," Uncle Owen says, but he's _not_ happy about it.

Faintly, through the layers of stone and the metal of the door, the rumblings of the swoop bikes' engines can still be heard, as well as yelling - and then sharp, whining noises that somehow cuts through the stone, and Luke's breath is driven out of him as Uncle Owen pulls him tight again.

Luke is bored and has been told to stand still and not wander off four times by the time there's no more noise from outside. The swoops must have left. They still stand there for _another_ few minutes and Luke can't help but squirm. When Uncle Owen finally moves, he still keeps a firm hand around Luke's shoulder, and Aunt Beru walks so close by she almost trips him.

Outside... outside it smells of exhaust and iron.

There's bodies on the ground, Luke has time to see before Uncle Owen slaps a hand over his eyes and ignores Luke's protests because how's he supposed to _walk_ when he can't even _see_?

Uncle just snaps at him to be quiet, and his arm aches where Uncle's carting him along and he has to skip and hop and almost stumbles a few times until Uncle Owen removes his hand. Luke tries to peer behind Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, but they're off the main street by now.

Luke still remembers the look of the slumped bodies, seven in all, holes burned in the clothes... and in the flesh as well. Light and shadow playing on puckered, charred flesh and already the burgeoning stink of dead, sun-warmed skin was gathering in the air.

He asks how his parents died, the next day.

There are no answers.

 

**He's nine when he and Aunt Beru gets stuck in a sandstorm on the way back from Anchorhead.**

It came fast, but things had _seemed_ clear when they left. Luke had woken up anxious, though, and the feeling hadn't gone away as the day went on, but he hadn't been able to spot anything. So he'd thought it was nothing and there were no warnings and Aunt Beru hadn't been worried. 

Now they're trying to race the growing gusts of wind chasing sand over the ground, around them, tearing at the cloth Aunt Beru has around her head and his hat. 

She takes a moment to smile at him, but he can see she's tense - _feel_ it, like a heavy knot in his stomach, though sort of hovering around her.

It's when he pulls down his goggles when he catches sight of her out of the corner of his eye. She's quiet and somber, but her gestures are worried as she points off to the north-west. Biting his lip, Luke knows they won't make it to Tosche Station in time to take shelter from the sandstorm. He leans over, tugs at Aunt's sleeve.

"Luke, not _now_ , I need to---"

"Aunt Beru, we need to go _that_ way," he says, pointing off north-west and at an angle that's behind them now. Aunt Beru is hunched over the steering, lips a thin line and her eyes worried, but if she is about to protest when she glances down at him, she doesn't. Instead she makes a turn sharp enough the servo motors screech and the repulsors struggle to keep the landspeeder even.

There's a gentle pat on his head as they race in the direction he was shown, but it's not Aunt Beru. Luke doesn't twitch, just bites his lip, worried he interpreted things wrong. 

_Saw_ wrong (saw nothing). 

But no, when the cliff juts up from the dry ground and half-cloaked in the sand whirling around, there's a crack in it. It's not much of a cave, but they can lodge the landspeeder halfway in through it and still have a small space beyond it.

Aunt Beru sets him down on the ground and pulls out her comlink, trying to get enough of a stable connection to tell Uncle Owen they're safe. She's not having much luck.

Luke looks around at the piles of sand gathered against the walls, the smoothed stone and smiles up at the other woman there. Her dark hair's in a bun, streaked with gray, and there's the sort of wrinkles on her face that's partly from the harshness of Tatooine, claiming every drop of water and life in return for living on the planet, and partly from normal ageing. 

Her eyes are kind. 

He knows who she is, and tilts his head into the touch on his cheek.

She's gone the next moment, and Luke turns around towards his Aunt, who's still trying... there's a woman there. And it's not his grandmother. She's standing just beyond the landspeeder, her clothes whirling and billowing around her, her face like the suns and her eyes like the pit of... uh... like wherever the sarlacc lives. Her smile is like his grandmother's though, but that doesn't stop the thrill of fearful awe.

His bottom lip is going to look _awful_ at the end of this (it's already sore), Luke thinks as he blinks up at her, dips his head... and then dares a smile up at her. She laughs, then, and the sandstorm roars; the sound is indistinguishable.

"Aunt Beru, let me try," Luke says, reaching out. She hesitates and then hands the comlink over.

He doesn't really need to do much of anything (in fact, he's not sure _what_ he does that's different from Aunt's fiddling), but it means Aunt Beru can send her message, and they spend the evening and night huddled up against the back wall. It's a good thing they were in Anchorhead to shop.

The sandstorm has blown over the next morning.

 

**He's thirteen and a half and has a wicked aim.**

Nine times out of ten, he can get a womp rat on the first try, and Uncle Owen is really pleased with his progress. Aunt Beru less so, but Luke's happy and proud, especially since Uncle is.

At the moment, however, he's not contemplating a stationary, non-living target _or_ a womp rat. 

He's clutching a rock in his hand and staring at a male Twi'lek leaning into an Askaijan's personal space. She doesn't like it, even if she's trying to keep her voice down and not make a scene. Luke's not sure _why_ , there's two stormtroopers that'd come running if she yelled for help, right? The 'troopers might not be much of anywhere else, but they keep the peace in Bestine, and a woman screaming right down the road from two of them would call their attention, right?

As such, Luke's unsure what to do.

It's his first time in Bestine, and he's been staring at everything even when he's basically been tugged along every step on the way, either by Aunt Beru or Uncle Owen. It's given him less time to do as much staring as he wants, especially at the spaceships he can see every now and then coming and leaving. He still caught the little scene brewing down the alley they're right next to.

They're going to leave this stall soon, Luke knows, and...

"Come _on_ now, _why not_?" There's an ugly, wheedling tone in the man's voice, but there's also something darker underneath, mirrored in his narrow, narrow eyes and sort of billowing around him.

"You're a _bad customer_ , Halu, _that's why_!" the Askaijan woman hisses back, pulling the robe closer around herself - but since that merely makes the cloth strain over well-rounded flesh and make the Twi'lek reach out, her gesture seems an ill-advised one. Luke bites his lip, glances up at Aunt and Uncle and squeezes the rock in his hand.

If she doesn't want to sell, she doesn't want to.

Eyes narrowing, Luke takes a breath and hurls the rock through the air.

The chatter, noises from animals and landspeeders passing by masks the sickening crunch of the rock hitting home, and the Twi'lek drops like the rock he was hit with. The woman blinks, eyes wide and darting around, meeting Luke's wide, blue ones. There's a small, brief smile that practically _shines_ with her gratitude, and then she's gone deeper into the alley.

Luke feels ill.

He didn't aim for the temple (Uncle has told him that's a sensitive part) but heads are tricky things and the Twi'lek _isn't moving_. Swallowing, he backs away as far as he can, which presses him up against Aunt Beru's side and that's _fine_ with him. 

He hadn't intended... he hopes the Twi'lek isn't...

"We're soon finished, Luke. We'll get something to eat in a bit," Aunt Beru says, smiling down at him and he nods. Can't look up at her and the thought of _food_ makes him nauseous. He's seen dead people before. He's seen people being killed before, but he hasn't ever possibly done it _himself_. They move to the next stall over shortly after that, and when they pass down the same way they came nearly twenty minutes later, Luke glances down the alley, eyes drawn against his will.

The Twi'lek is up on his knees, vomiting on the dusty ground, and _not dead_.

He still has nightmares that night, but only some of them are of the Twi'lek, blood soaking into the sand. Others are of things he doesn't understand, hasn't seen or done himself and he ends up sleeping between Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen for the first time in years.

A few days later the nightmares are forgotten, but not the noise of the rock hitting the Twi'lek's skull.

 

**He's nineteen when he meets his sister.**

Not that he knows that the princess in the recording, Leia Organa, is his sister at that point. No, that part comes much, much later, when he's not still reeling from Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen's deaths. 

Running down into her cell so they can leave as quickly as possible, he's frozen the second he lays his eyes on her. The whole of him sort of _twists_ and then settles and she's _so pretty_.

But even her beauty sort of falls to the side for the feeling crowding his muscles and tongue and delaying the introduction he _should_ make. He's pretty sure he's in love.

(He's not, or rather, he realises later that what he at least thinks is a crush means less than her friendship, than what they _have_ , whatever it is, and the crush dries up quickly.)

It takes Leia making a comment about his height before he remembers she thinks he's a stormtrooper, and he can say what he's supposed to have said from the start.

 

**He's nineteen and has killed a lot of people.**

It was necessary, he knows.

They had to get off the Death Star. 

They had to _stop_ the Death Star.

He shouldn't have given in to his curiosity to find out how much crew a station like the Death Star could (would?) have.

At minimum, that was one million people.

At maximum, almost two million.

And he can't even console himself with weighing it against the destruction of Alderaan or any number of planets that might have been next. Not in the creaking darkness of the _Falcon's_ lounge, because, no matter how _necessary_ or _right_ , that's still... over a million people dead. 

He tries to swallow the noise that wants to slip out, but when both Chewie and Han (the latter in a shirt, boxers and socks, both of them wielding their respective weapons) come barrelling into the lounge from their beds, he realises he failed.

Han takes one look at him and Luke can't interpret what that half-sigh, part-grunt is.

"... Ah, kid." He doesn't say anything else, sharing a look with Chewie and then Chewie sits down, Han returning after putting on his pants, and they show him how to play Dejarik.

Leia joins them two hours later.

He wakes up in a narrow bed under several blankets, still fully clothed. Leia's in the bed across from him, and Chewie's in a hammock above them, strung from wall to wall.

He falls back asleep after having met a pair of big, brown eyes peeking over a blanket from the other bed, and even if Leia's gone when he wakes up again, her blanket has been added to the pile on top of him, and Han and Chewie come with him to the mess hall.


	3. Chapter 3

**She is two and a half weeks old when she experiences rain for the first time.**

The baby is laying in a little nest in a bassinet underneath the window in a large, airy study, the two adults at the huge desk quietly discussing budget proposals and the upcoming first official term of the Imperial Senate. The baby is gumming at a plush woolly moth caterpillar, and staring up at the leaves of the plant that partly hangs over the crib.

Something is missing.

The baby knows this, keener than the pain of hunger, deeper than the lack of touch that makes her cry out and always brings someone to pick her up and and hug her close to a warm chest and a beating heart. She already associates the two presences in the room with her, both of them bright and warm, with safety, love, food and hugs.

But those are not what she's missing.

The sunlight disappears, and eyes that were blue a week or two ago but now are a warm, dark brown, are drawn, however unfocused, to the towering clouds rolling in over the sky. She's missing... missing something she doesn't have the concepts or experiences to name. It was _green_ the thing she's missing. Green and close and with a heartbeat of its own.

There's lots of green here, in so many, many shades, but none of them the _right one_ \---

She's almost worked herself into helpless, angry screaming again (the sort that works her up for hours and in the end exhausts her even if she doesn't remain sleeping for long) when the first, fat drops fall outside. They _splat_ down on the plants placed in groups out on the balcony, they _plink_ off the glass of the large windows and _plonk_ down on the smooth, polished stone.

The breath intended for screaming is caught, and escapes softly.

The rain increases in strength, and the baby remembers something else. A voice, full of tears and determination, quietly saying her name. The rain reminds her of it, even if she doesn't quite understand it.

It doesn't take away the _lack_ of the green, that missing thing she can't name, but it soothes her.

As the storm builds up outside and Bail walks over to the window to close it to protect the baby from the cold gusts coming in, Leia has fallen asleep.

 

**She is four the first time she can remember being in front of a crowd.**

The sunlight is warm and turns the stone creamy, and Papa's dark robes are warmer still, but she keeps her arms locked around his neck and hasn't let go since he picked her up. Mama's in front of them, but she's speaking to the crowd - so, so many - below, and Leia is transfixed. The words wash over her in a powerful melody, and they don't mean anything to Leia, but Mama's presence is bright, her somber blues and black striking, and all of those people are listening to Mama.

It strikes a chord in her, though she's not sure _why_ , and despite the curious fire within, she hides her face in Papa's throat when he leaves the shadow and steps up beside Mama. She peeks out a little later and simply _stares_.

This is important, Leia can tell, and that shuddering chord inside of her is struck again.

 

**She is five and doesn't want to have her hair brushed.**

"NO!" She tosses a pillow and ducks away from the grasping hands, sliding off the couch and takes off at a run. The 'fresher is considered only briefly - the lock can be hacked open and then she'll have nowhere to go. So Leia turns sharply away from her path and barrels out the door instead, tossing herself between another attendant's legs, yelling her denial again as she's asked to ' _stop_! Calm down, your Highness, _please_.'

She doesn't want to have her hair brushed.

The way the bristles catch and tug and _bite_ , she hates it, hates it, _hates_ it. She doesn't like the way her hair falls into her eyes eyes, always all over the place, but for it to be out of the way, braided and neatly pinned, it needs to be brushed and she _hates it_.

Another hand reaches out and she _shrieks_ , ducking away again and into the room she's been aiming for, and she goes through the lounge and the sun room and into the bedroom, crawling up on the bed with the help of the bedspread and buries herself underneath the covers and all the pillows she can reach.

It's a long time later (twenty minutes) when the door is opened, cloth brushing over the polished floor and then the bed dips as Mama sits down on the edge of it. Leia doesn't need to look to know it's Mama.

"Leia, sweetie..."

"No! No, no, no, no." The mantra is muffled into cloth and mattress, but she knows Mama can hear because there's this little catch of her breath, and then she sighs. Sighs and slowly moves each pillow in turn, putting them back where they should be and finally peels off the covers and picks her up, brushing tangled hair out of Leia's face.

"But you like having your hair up in braids, Leia," Mama says and presses a kiss to her forehead, soft and smelling like roses. The thumbs brushing Leia's cheeks are soft as well, but with a tiny hint of roughness.

"Don't like the brush," Leia says, screwing her face up in Mama's hands and she's not going to cry, she is five and she wants to be taken seriously and if she cries then Mama won't take her seriously!

"I know you don't, sweetie," Mama says with another little sigh, kissing her forehead again, "but you can't have one without the other. Here." Mama straightens up and turns her around in her lap, patting her head and sliding just her fingertips into Leia's brown tresses.

" _No_!"

The hand stops, pats her again and Mama kisses the crown of her head.

"Why don't you like the brush, Leia?"

Squirming, Leia stares at the fall of Mama's dress to the floor and picks at the embroidered thranta frolicking through the jewel clouds.

"It hurts." Which is true, because it _does_. Tug, bite, snag and _yank_ , it hurts and she doesn't like it, but on some level it always seems as if it's the wrong person doing the brushing too, and Leia's not sure how to articulate that.

"Let me tell you a secret, Leia, but you've got to promise not to tell Papa I told you when he comes home, all right?" Mama says and there's hands on her hair again, but not doing anything, just resting there. Leia tilts her head back and stares up at Mama upside down.

"… Promise. What is it?"

Mama smiles and strokes her hands down over her hair, hands warm and gentle. Still not right...

"Your Papa doesn't like to have his hair brushed either, you see."

Leia gasps and then grins, tilting her head back to follow the embroidered thranta again.

"That why his hair's so short? No one else has that."

Mama laughs, and while Leia tenses when her fingertips edge into her hair again, she doesn't cry out for her to stop, trying to focus on Mama's voice, Mama's warmth and presence behind her. It's _Mama_ , she should be the right person to brush her hair. Should.

"Not _everybody_ has long hair, but yes. That's why Papa's hair is so short. Let me tell you how I found out..." Mama's voice is soft as she speaks, her hands softer still as she carefully, slowly, combs through Leia's hair. First only with her fingers, and then with a brush. It still doesn't feel right, but focusing on Mama's words Leia can ignore it and relax enough to realise Mama's careful enough not to hurt her hair either.

An hour later, Leia has a proper braid pinned high on her head and Breha can go back to her interrupted meeting.

 

**She is eight and they're having a picnic for her birthday.**

Papa is home from Coruscant (Imperial Center, she reminds herself, even if she doesn't need to use that name at home), and her request for an outdoors lunch for her private birthday celebration was granted with indulgent smiles. Bright, happy smiles that makes her insides glow. Even more so when they take _thrantas_ to the mountain meadow, the early summer wind cool on her face and in her hair against the bright, warm sunlight, and she throws her arms out, laughing happily.

Mama and Papa merely keep a hand each on her shoulder and her side, but allows her to stand at the front of the carriage until it's time to land, the experience so completely different from a speeder's even descent and she loves it. The thranta takes long, dipping flaps with its wings, bringing them downwards in a motion like a descending wave and even if the speed is stately at best, it still causes a twisting thrill in the pit of her stomach.

The meadow is a wide, if shallow, slash of new-green against blue-veined, smoky gray rocks, and the little brook that splashes down the cliffside to wind its way through the meadow is glacier-cold. Leia knows because she begged to take her shoes off to dip her feet in, and she made sure to keep her skirts up as she stuck her feet in and walked around a shallow part of the little stream, the sand soft as it filtered around her toes, shrieking at the cold.

The best thing about the _private_ celebration is that anyone who can of their family takes time to come along, no matter what she requests to do. So as she sits in Papa's lap with Mama close, alternately feeding Papa and her pieces of delicate twists of thinly sliced meat topped with fruit, there's six aunts and uncles around her, and then, of course, the guards.

They're keeping to the other end of the meadow, though, and Leia doesn't think about them at first. More important is Mama's laughter as Papa leans in to steal the next piece of pickled fruit that's for her right out of Mama's fingers, and she huffs, slapping his thigh.

"Papa! That was _mine_!" she pouts and turns her head back so she can make sure he sees her wide, shimmery eyes, and Papa makes the appropriate noises of apology, kissing her forehead... and sticks the piece of fruit he'd picked up in his own mouth, _again_ , right before he was about to let her have it.

"PAPA!"

The laughter around her from her aunt and uncles (three sisters and one brother of Papa's, one sister and brother of Mama's) almost makes it impossible to keep her stern expression.

"So what punishment will you mete out for stealing food out of the Princess' very mouth?" Mama says, somehow managing not to laugh even as her warm, brown eyes are sparkling, and Leia narrows her eyes up at her papa, feeling pleased at his quiet 'uh-oh'.

"He can't have any cake," she says, sniffing and raising her nose in the air, crossing her arms over her chest. She is very gratified at Papa's _wounded_ gasp, and is then hard-pressed not to break down in giggles as he turns her around, gently prying her arms from where they're pressed against her chest so he can hold them in his own hands as he intersperses his pleas for mercy with kisses all over her face and hands.

"A princess knows when to be merciful as well," one of her aunts calls from her spot on a rock, arms draped over her wife's shoulders, "could her Highness be convinced to show some mercy on this poor thief?"

Trying to twist out of the buzzy kisses Papa's trying to plant around her ear, Leia has to breathe through her nose not to laugh and pushes his face away when she finally manages to twist a hand out of the (gentle) grip he has on it.

"The Princess of Alderaan says this _awful_ thief can have _one_ piece of cake. After the escorts has had some!" Leia is very proud that her proclamation isn't broken up by breathless giggles, even more so when Papa straightens up and levels a somber look down at her, nodding.

"I gratefully receive your words, Highness, and acknowledge the judgement as fair. Shall I help you carry their share to them as well?"

Nodding, grin wide around the pickled fruit her mother has handed her, Leia springs up to her feet. While this means she can't have the first piece, she doesn't mind. She makes sure she carries at least one of the plates, offering it up to the guard captain with all due seriousness before she runs back to her family's gathering, her laugh high in the air and her papa fast on her heels.

 

**She's not yet ten when she ends up on a speeder bike.**

She has a break between her lessons and she's fully planning on being late for the next one, because etiquette is _boring_. Even more boring than history. So, intending to be late or not, she's using her break to explore one of the palace hangars. She makes sure to keep to the walls, or carefully walking between vehicles well out of the way of the technicians and engineers walking around. She wants to have a look at the landspeeders, speeder bikes and the two passenger shuttles in the hangar, not be in the way.

There's a few patient, if faintly exasperated calls for her to 'be careful', and Leia makes sure to nod and wave, because she _will_. She just wants to---

_Danger!_

The feeling whips through her like lightning and she doesn't even think, she just ducks, throwing herself sideways partly up on a bike to avoid the technician who is reaching for her, and he suddenly has a gun in his hands and Leia just knows she needs to get _away_. 

She's already on the bike and while she doesn't know how to operate it, she doesn't need to.

Her fingers punches a button, twists a dial and then she yanks on the steering just as hands are reaching again, and the bike roars to life and she's _flying_.

She's also almost yanked right off the bike by the sudden lash of wind pressure, but she clamps her knees tight around the seat and the hangar is a blur as she tears out of it, her fear and exhilaration weaving together until it's bursting through her veins. The noise of speeder bikes in pursuit kills her delight, because how can she know they're _safe_?

She doesn't look, she just lets her hand move again, and her bike rockets away off the landing strip, down through walkways and off into the vast gardens that surround the back of the castle before the cliffs that led to the lake.

The noise of pursuit dies away, and Leia, suddenly, has _no idea_ how to stop.

Panic almost makes her pull the bike into an out-of-control spin, but then her hands do their job again and the bike slows down and then stops in the middle of a paved crescent surrounded with carefully pruned bushes fencing in collections of gingerbell and starblossom. She tumbles off the bike and, while trying to take care not to trample any of the flowers, crosses a bed of them to wedge herself between and under some of the bushes, curling up and wrapping her arms around her legs.

She will not cry.

She also doesn't dare _move_ , even after more than an hour has gone by, and woolly moths and tiny trillbirds has come back to the garden, which were scared away by her loud arrival. The only thing that lightens the tight knot in her stomach is the remembered exhilaration of her flight on the bike, the wind in her hair as everything else was reduced to a bright smear.

She wants to do it again.

But, maybe, she acknowledges, when she actually knows how to drive a speeder bike.

She doesn't know how long she's been sitting here, leaves tickling her sweaty neck and her lip sore from her teeth digging into it, when she hears a voice she _knows_ she can trust.

"Leia? Leia, _please_ come out if you're here!"

" _Papa_!" She falls into the flowers while struggling to get out from the bushes, but Papa doesn't seem to care as he comes running into the clearing, pushes the bike out of the way and falls to his knees just as she throws herself at him, arms around his throat and her face in his chest.

His heart is beating fast and she can't help a few of the tears that escape, but when he pulls her away to grasp her face, his eyes are bright as well.

"Are you all right? Did they hurt you?"

She shakes her head, quick and sharp, if only to alleviate the dark tremble in his voice - it's so small anyone else would've missed it, but Leia can hear it and she wriggles until she can toss herself at him again, hugging herself close to him.

"I got on the bike, he didn't even touch me! What happened?" her voice is muffled against his soft, dark robes, but Papa hears her anyway and hugs her close, then stands up, bringing her with him.

"Take the bike back to the hangar, please," Papa says to one of the guards with him, and then starts to walk, adjusting her in his arms. She is all too happy to stay right where she is. "And we're going to find out what they wanted, but they're all taken care of. Nothing to worry about, Princess."

She says she doesn't, but that night she dreams - dreams of keeping watch over something precious in the next room, of sleeping and waking up to danger that is averted by her guardian, and she wakes up with a gasp and then pads over to Mama and Papa's bedroom. 

There's only Papa there (Mama is away on a diplomatic visit, she knows), sitting in the bed reading a datapad that casts his face in a pale blue light, and he sighs when he sees her but pulls the covers aside. She curls up next to him, eyes drooping as he caresses her hair, trailing his fingers over her night-time braids.

"Can I learn to drive a speeder bike?"

"... Sleep, Princess. When you're older," Papa murmurs and Leia smiles and sleeps the rest of the night without any more dreams.

 

**She is twelve when she walks in on a secret meeting.**

She can't sleep.

Normally, she'd simply stay in her room, read a book, sit out on the balcony, or, in the most dire of emergencies, bother the cooking droid on night duty for something warm to maybe tease her towards sleep.

Tonight, none of the usual attempts are working, not even the warm blue milk.

So, with a sigh, Leia takes to wandering the corridors outside the Royal Apartments, pulling on a robe and sticking her feet in the winter slippers before she leaves.

Not that they're necessarily _needed_ ; the floors are kept warm, but it just doesn't feel proper to walk around in her sleepwear without slippers, especially during _winter_.

The lights outside are dim, a faint honey-warm glow that slides over her and it makes her think of the dream she _thinks_ she was having while dozing earlier (the best her brain and body has afforded her in regards to sleep this night). It had been sunset, warm, relentless late-day light washing over the angles of a building so very different from any that could be found in Aldera, and something... someone, important was leaving.

Shaking her head, Leia is about to turn back when she pauses in front of the doors into the living room lounge. Maybe she can sit in her favourite chair for a bit, just curl up in its soft, squashy pillows and drape the Afghan from the blue couch over her. Maybe that will help her sleep.

Opening the door, Leia walks three steps inside before she realises her parents are on the couch and that there's a third person in the room, sitting curled up in one of the wing chairs that faces the couch, a steaming cup on the table in front of them.

The adults turn to stare at her, and Leia blinks.

The stranger woman - because she is a woman - is a Togruta. She's tall and her pale eyes seem to glow in the muted light of the room, and her chin is strong and Leia can swear she's seen her before.

Except she hasn't.

"Leia? Sweetie, what are you doing up?" Mama rises from the couch and sweeps across the floor, kneeling down in front of her with uncaring ease. Leia returns the hug, but her eyes are on the stranger. Those blue eyes are on her as well.

"I couldn't sleep," she says, and then hesitates. She's not dumb. If her parents are meeting someone in the middle of the night, the only lights provided by a few hovering globe lights and a datapad on the table, she's pretty sure she shouldn't ask. But... "Who is she?"

She glances from the woman to Mama and then to Papa, and Mama and Papa share a look before Papa dips his head and Mama stands up, turning around, a hand on her shoulder.

"Leia, this is---"

"Ahsoka," she says, her voice quiet, strong. Tremulous, underneath, and she's staring as if she's trying to figure something out, something she can almost, but not quite, put her finger on. Maybe she doesn't want to. Her parents are surprised - do they not know Ahsoka's name, or were they expecting her to use another one?

Leia smiles and curtsies, in her nightgown and robe and all, because it might be in the middle of the night and she might be tired and she might have interrupted a secret of some sort, but she can still be polite.

"Ahsoka, this is our daughter, Leia," Papa says and Ahsoka smiles, nodding even as there's a slight tension around her eyes... and then her mama turns her around, gently leading her out.

"Come on, sweetie. You need to sleep."

Leia lets herself be led out of the room, back to her bed, and with Mama sitting at the edge, stroking her hair and singing a lullaby, Leia finally falls asleep. She dreams of sunsets and a feeling of loss she doesn't understand.

She doesn't remember the dreams in the morning, and there is no evidence of her parents' night-time visitor.

 

**She is thirteen and it's her first time on Imperial Center.**

She had actually tried to _hide_ before they went here, because she didn't want to be on _Imperial Center_ for her birthday! Or for _Empire Day_. She hated that they were so close to each other, because there was always someone who just _had_ to make themselves funny over that or acted like it was something special, even when forgetting that her actual birthday wasn't on Empire Day.

So Leia had tried to hide while Winter, wearing one of her dresses and a cloak with a hood, was to go in her place.

Of course her parents had noticed, and by then Sabé had found her and was already marching her along to the hangar.

So here she is now, standing in a ballroom with the ceiling high enough it's cast in darkness, and she feels so very uncomfortable.

Not because of the many officers, moffs, and courtiers and other nobles that have come up to both wish her well for her debut, wish her a happy early birthday, or, with varying amounts of cleverness, exclaiming over the patriotism of a child born today. Conveniently forgetting that she _wasn't_ born on Empire Day, and as if there probably weren't thousands (tens of thousands) of children who'd been born today. It's hardly a _miracle_.

No, what's making her uncomfortable is a thread of nauseating fear that seems to thrum in the floor itself, old and hard. Fear and surprise and despair... _Pain_. She shakes her head, just a tiny little twitch, to reassure her parents that she's fine - they'd both brushed their hands against her back at the same time.

But that might also be because of the man that is now standing in front of them, if _man_ he can be called.

"I hope you're having a pleasant Empire Day, Your Highness," Leia mumbles as she curtsies, dress spilling out about her and she dares a glance up through her lashes.

Yellow.

Yellow and cold, cold enough to _burn_.

He doesn't see her.

"Happy early birthday, Princess," the Emperor says, perfunctorily and sharp, but he's not really looking at her. Has, in fact, already focused on her parents. 

Leia is relieved. She doesn't even understand _why_ she is, but it tastes like blood and tears and she _doesn't like him_. Not because he's ugly (but he is), or because of his unpleasant, scary eyes (but they are). 

No, it's... he's cruel. 

Not even just _mean_ in that petty sort of way a lot of people are, but cruel in some way she imagines people who could and would pull legs off of bugs and kill baby animals are, and she's glad he didn't really pay attention to her.

She wishes she could've spat in his face.

(Later, when she's older, Leia realises she misjudged - His Imperial Highness Emperor Sheev Palpatine is far too sophisticatedly cruel for something as _small_ as torturing baby animals, at least just for the act itself. And that just makes him even more terrifying.)

 

**She is fourteen and a half when she assists with catastrophe relief for the first time.**

She's been enjoying a winter vacation trip. It's also off-world, though not her first. But it's the first she has been allowed to travel alone, with only a contingent of bodyguards along, and as such, Leia is, of course, excited. The snowy resort moon she's chosen only heightens the excitement.

She'd initially planned a similar vacation to the Triplehorn mountains, but when her parents offered her to choose an off-world location, she took the chance.

The weather had been predicted to be pleasant, the last large snowfall to be before her arrival and then not until after she was set to leave, two weeks later. Nearly a week into her visit, however, a blizzard starts.

In the early hours of the morning after the blizzard have started, Leia wakes up.

She's not sure _why_ , but her stomach is a knot of dread, and she paces for two hours before she can sleep again. The next morning, she finds out why.

"Your Highness, we're preparing your ship," the captain of her guard, helmet tucked against her side, says as she strides into her breakfast, and Leia frowns.

"Why? What happened?" She remembers the way she woke up, and something twists in her again.

"There was a class three avalanche early this morning, the blizzard is still ongoing and more avalanches are expected. We need to---"

"What about the population?" Leia's frown is deepening, meeting the startled, blue eyes of her guard captain with a flat twist of her mouth.

"Princess?"

"The other guests and the native population? What about them? How are they doing?" She's no longer eating, laying her hands, one above the other, in her lap.

"Most of the guests who have transportation available are leaving for safer areas, which---"

"Captain. I want a status report of the rescue work that must be underway, and I want you to inquire as to what we can do to help."

Captain Toraan stares at her, mouth soft with... not quite shock, more like uncertainty.

"Princess, my orders..." but she trails off and dips her head when Leia just shakes her head, eyes narrow, "I'll see to it, Your Highness."

Leia might not be yet fifteen, but she doesn't feel like she can leave the resort simply because things suddenly got _bad_ , and while she isn't allowed to personally assist in the rescue and relief work that continues for the rest of her stay, just like the blizzard does, she helps in any way she can, and leaves the moon with a personal thank you from the administrator.

She is fully prepared to meet her parents' worry with arguments she's built up over the week, and so, when she steps into their private quarters and she's met by hugs from her mama and papa, she lifts her face to meet each of their gazes and speaks before they can.

"Mama, Papa, I want to help."

They know what she means, and, surprisingly, she doesn't need to argue as hard as she thought she would have to do. Not that they don't _question_ her, but they're both pleased by the arguments she's prepared and the work she did on the resort moon. Leia feels a quiet, happy glow settle in her stomach when they agree to supplement her lessons, both academic and those involving her future position with off-planet duties as well.

 

**She is sixteen and sitting beside her mother.**

They are sitting around a crescent-shaped table and listening to... somebody-or-other putting forth his construction proposal, and Leia would rather be elsewhere.

She'd rather be on her way on the _Tantive IV_ with the aid they are lending to Lothal and its displaced citizens, a trip delayed for this meeting at the request of her mother - 'for your education', Mama had said. She'd rather be back on Dantooine assisting with relief for the farmers and the native Dantari from the flooded plains. She'd rather be at the shooting range, practising her aim.

She'd rather do any _number_ of things that feel far more constructive than this, but she knows this is important as well, even if it doesn't _feel_ like it. But Alderaan's development is important, she does know this.

It's just...

Eyes narrowing as she concentrates back on the man and his speech - not that she's not perfectly aware of what he's been saying even while wishing to be elsewhere - Leia frowns. There is something...

He is relaxed, his gestures open but not expansive, and his speech confident, exact. 

There is still _something_ , and she touches her mother's sleeve, a faint brush of nails against a rich explosion of white starblossoms and woolly moths against deep, twilight blue cloth. Mama inclines her head just slightly, and they let him finish his speech, then stand up.

"Excuse us for a moment, gentlebeings," Mama says and they sweep out of the room to a smaller one set off to the side, and Mama puts down a portable jammer she pulls out of her sleeve on the desk before she turns to her, hands on top of each other on her abdomen.

"You're not pleased with the contract?" 

Leia's not sure if Mama's phrasing it like that merely to test her, or if she thinks that's her actual complaint. Either way, she shakes her head, one arm folded against her, elbow on that arm and fist against her mouth.

"That's not it. There's something... I know what he _claims_ , but I think we should have an independent investigation done before we allow him to proceed."

Her mother tilts her head, light catching off the thin threads of metal hanging off her high braids.

"One has already been conducted, Leia, you read the results yourself before we had this meeting."

She shakes her head, not about to give up.

"I _know_ , Mama. But I have a bad feeling about this... about _him_. Something's off, either with the contract, his work, or the putative effects - or lack of them - on the land he wants to build on."

"All right," her mother nods, pursing her lips, "it might be worth a second look, and I believe we have grounds to stall him... you'll tell him, Leia."

She keeps from grimacing, because she knows why Mama is putting this on her; both because it's her idea and because she needs to be able to do it. So she straightens up, nods, and walks back into the conference room first, already putting her speech together in her head.

He is not pleased, but finds nothing to complain about and has to accept the delay.

 

**She is eighteen and the weight of pretense is heavy.**

It feels so _useless_ , and that thought makes her angry, because this should be anything _but_ useless. The Emperor, however, has made the Senate into nothing but a puppet theatre, and they're all just here to keep the pretense going for however long His Imperial Highness deems it necessary to do so. Necessary, or amusing.

At least, Leia thinks as she carefully, slowly goes through her hair with the brush, mindful of the almost-pain prickling her scalp but managing to avoid it by long familiarity, at least she is doing _something_. Even if it is a something that needs to be carefully tread around, keeping her head down and listening to a careless word here, another there, and hiding behind her big eyes, soft mouth and larger hair.

They all think she is even softer and smaller than she looks, forgetting that small, soft things can have sharp teeth and long claws hidden in the fur. 

She rather wishes Mama or Papa was here to brush her hair for her, even if she'd be just as tense about the pain in her scalp then too. It just doesn't seem right that she has to do it herself, even if she has for years, now. 

The funny thing is, she easily remembers a time when even her mother or father brushing her hair felt _wrong_ , as if they weren't the right ones.

Who else would be the right ones, anyway, but _them_?

She shake the thought away when her holocom chimes, and after a quick glance at the frequency simply twists her hair around itself and clips it together with a carved hairpiece she got from one of her aunts two years ago, and reaches to accept the call.

"Good evening, Papa," Leia says, already smiling, and she'd be lying if she claimed she didn't feel the weight on her heart lighten just at the sight of his dark, lined face and his warm eyes.

"Good afternoon, Princess."

There has only ever been one person who can make her title sound like the most precious of endearments, and that's her father. Leia sinks back into the couch, the tension in her shoulders unwinding and playing with the end of her hair, causing her father to frown at her.

"Leia, stop that. You'll get split ends, worrying at your hair like that. You know this."

"I'm fine, Papa." Leia knows she should be asking other things. Nothing to do with... anything, but proper small-talk things, to entertain whoever might have managed to plant a bug in her apartments before it's swept away in the next security sweep. 

She can't, however, the words sticking in her mouth, under her tongue and she just stares at her father, at his familiar, comforting face and suddenly remembering when they told her she was adopted and she'd asked if that meant she couldn't call them her mama and papa anymore.

They had been appalled and amused at the same time and, of course, reassured her that that wasn't at all what her being adopted meant.

"How are you doing, Princess?" Papa asks, frowning at her, the pinched sort of expression with a little twist at the corner of his mouth which means he means business. He's having this private conversation over a line that, yes, _ought_ to be secure, but you can never know. Not on Coru--- Imperial Center.

She chews the inside of her bottom lip, staring down at where she has laid her hands in her lap, twining her fingers together, and then finally glances up at her father through her eyelashes.

"They think they know absolutely everything," she says, and means _they think they know what I am_ , "I'm starting to wonder if anyone has anything of importance to say, or gets anything done _at all_. How did you stand it, Papa?" she asks, and means _no new information, and they're all empty-headed nerfs_.

"You get used to it, Leia. And some people are better left to their ignorance," her father says and his smile is sharp, cold. Leia meets it with a toothy little twist of her own, and carefully takes out the clasp, untwists her hair, and picks up her brush again.

"What were you thinking of giving Mama for her birthday?"

If anyone's listening, they will get nothing interesting. Unless they understand exactly how her papa's words untwists her muscles, lightens the weight in her stomach and makes her scalp ache less, that is.

Leia doubts it.


	4. Bonus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The name of a child is a hope for the future.

**Luke**

He's helping Aunt Beru carve out the innards of ripe hubba gourds, staring at the stringy flesh and trying not to think about how unpleasant this is going to be to eat. Well, the bread isn't bad, he supposes, but most of anything else made with this stuff _is_. There's not much choice, though, he knows. They're not getting much out of the vaporators, barely enough to keep the homestead going, which, he knows, means there's nothing to sell.

Pushing that thought away, he looks down at the mutilated gourd in front of him, scrunches his nose and finally asks something that's been on his mind lately.

"Aunt Beru, does names mean things?" Luke looks up at her as she pauses in her own work, brushing away a bit of stringy flesh that's ended up on her cheek and he hides a smile behind his hand.

"Usually, yes. Where did this come from, Luke?" she asks, looking down at him with a smile on her face and her eyes brightening from the narrow concentration they'd been set in. Shrugging, Luke pokes at the gourd, because how is he supposed to explain?

"Just... thinking. The hubba, our names... y'know?" It feels like an odd thing to think about, so he's been weighing it for longer than usual, but his aunt just chuckles, puts the implement down, dries off her hands, does the same to his, and shoos him towards the table. She's back with blue milk and what he _knows_ are the last few cookies, but he's not going to protest when they're put in front of him.

" _Hubba_ is a word in the Jawa language, I know that much," she says as she sits down beside him, her smile wrinkling her face as he stuffs cookies in his mouth, "mine means _twilight_ \---"

" _Berun_!" he cries, smiling in excitement and spraying crumbs all over the tabletop. Aunt Beru sighs and hides a smile behind her hand herself this time, but still raises an eyebrow at him.

"Sorry," he mutters and scoots off the chair to go get something to clean up the table with, though she takes it from him when he comes back and talks as she sweeps the crumbs up.

"But yes, that's it, Luke. The light at twilight; relief and comfort," Aunt Beru says, her voice dropping lower for a moment, tapping her fingers on the tabletop, "yours mean _light_ as well." She looks down at him with a faintly expectant air around her, and he has to think, frowning and tapping the second to last cookie against his chin in thought.

"... Dawn...?"

"Yes," she smiles again, brighter this time, and Luke pushes the nearly empty cookie plate at her and Aunt Beru shakes her head but he frowns at her until she picks the cookie up.

"Dawn," she confirms quietly, still smiling, even if there's... something... he can't quite tell what it is in her eyes, "the light of the first sun before the second has risen. Before it gets hot but the cold is letting up; guidance."

It's a word he hasn't heard before and he frowns and tucks it away mentally - probably to be forgotten about until much later - before he goes on to the next one.

"And... Grandma's name... it's just means _name_ does it?" Which is utterly confusing. Why would you name someone... just 'name'? His aunt, however, is looking down at him with a particularly sober expression, and Luke, unconsciously, straightens up a little in response.

"Names are never 'just' names, Luke. It's something that can't be taken away from you, even if no one else calls you by it; it's still _yours_. It's what and who you are."

And just like that, he knows why it's important, why she's serious, and he thinks of his grandma and father and _slavery_ , and nods. Because in a way Grandma Shmi's name is the greatest reclaiming of herself while she was a slave

"... What about my last name?" Not that he actually needs to ask what it _means_ ; it's clear as day written out in Basic, but names, clearly, are stories, and there must be one there in that name as well.

"It's a very old name," Aunt Beru says and finally eats her cookie, which prompts Luke to do the same with his, "from the first human settlers on Tatooine, when the only other inhabitants were the Tusken and Jawa. They came from the stars, so when they landed..."

" _Skywalker_ ," he says, quietly, and then grins brightly. He's going to do the same thing one day, but in reverse; he's going to fly away, fly _in_ the blackness of space, not just down to Tatooine. Some day, after they've finished with all the dumb gourds and he's older and Uncle Owen can't tell him to do his chores.

 

**Leia**

She comes tearing into the office like her hair is on fire - or maybe it's her heart, as excited and intent as she is, but either way she knows she actually shouldn't be running but she can't _help herself_.

"Leia," her mama says and she automatically slows down; apparently she _can_ help herself with a bit of outside prompting and crosses the rest of the room in a properly sedate pace. She rounds the desk and comes up to Papa's side, looking up at him until he grins. It's a partly hidden grin and it's not aimed at her; it's aimed at Mama and she huffs and pouts up at him until he picks her up and plants her on his lap.

"What do you have here, Princess?" Papa says and she carefully lays the datapad down on the desk, out of the way of the other items spread around on its surface, and tilts her head into the gentle brush of soft fingers against her cheek when Mama reaches out.

"Is this what my name means?" she asks and points at the relevant entry on the screen, tiny fingers still somehow obscuring most of it so Papa has to fold her hand into a fist and rubs his big thumb over the back of her hand.

" _Veil_?" Papa, strangely, glances at Mama and they share a look before he looks down at her again and nods, "it does, Leia. In Alderaani, anyway."

There's a pause, and Mama has stopped her work, her hands folded on the desk now, and they're looking at each other again. Leia can barely keep from squirming - _bouncing_ \- in Papa's lap, but she does her best because there's _something_ here she can't quite grasp. She wants to know what it is.

"However... do you remember we told you I didn't carry or birth you?" Mama finally says, frowning slightly before she catches Leia staring at her and she smiles reassuringly. It's also an _honest_ smile and Leia relaxes and nods.

"Yes. She was from Naboo." Naboo is pretty - she's seen pictures and holos - and while she feels no real connection, she's still happy to know. It means something, even if Alderaan is her home and her mama and papa are her parents.

"She was. And in Nubian your name means _heart_ ; to be steadfast, since the heart is the thing that works the hardest at keeping you alive and going. Like this: _Leia_."

The moment Papa says it, Leia stills. 

Stares at the datapad and nods slowly, because the difference in pronunciation is suddenly _everything_ and it feels more right than anything else has so far, means more than knowing where the woman who birthed her came from. It's a tangible connection of something she doesn't exactly understand.

Briefly, she has a fleeting image in her head and the ghost of a whisper in her ears; a woman, dark hair plastered to her face, pale and sad and _kind_ , and her name uttered _just so_ , whispered--- She shakes her head and refuses to let the tears threatening fall, sucks a breath in and smiles up at Mama and Papa because they're looking worried.

"Thank you, Mama, Papa!"

"Where did this come from, then, Princess?"

She can't tell him it's because she's always felt that there was something off with the way everyone pronounced her name - she'd went looking for meanings to see if her name had different ones and maybe different pronunciations, but she hadn't found any. But now she knows why. So she shrugs and smiles again.

"Just wondered," she says and turns in Papa's lap so she can hug him, and his warm, strong arms wrap around her and everything is exactly as it should be. Her name being pronounced slightly differently doesn't matter, in the end. She knows _why_ , now, and that's all she wanted.

 

**Anakin and Padmé**

"What about the name?"

It takes him a moment to respond after Padmé speaks, because he's been staring at her going through her curls after letting her hair out from its daily elaborate prison (not that he doesn't love nearly each and every one of those), and he's tired and the fall of those brown locks are more enchanting - hypnotising - than usual.

"What?" He blinks at her, clutching at his knees to make sure he doesn't sway - so tired; from the war, the planning, the plots... too little _sleep_ \- and smiles at her. She sighs, utterly exasperated and he's fascinated that he can see it around her in the Force as clear as if she actually were another Force-sensitive. He wonders if it's the child that's sharing with her? Is that how it works? He wishes there was someone they could safely ask.

" _Name_ , for the _child_ , Ani," she says, smiling now despite, or maybe because of, being exasperated, and he feels his smile widening just at the mention of the baby. The initial delighted terror has dropped down into simple exhilaration and happiness, even with the dreams that make sleep impossible, so every time either of them mention it or he catches a glimpse of her rounded stomach, his own flutters and twists.

"Well, I don't know," he says as he stands up and crosses the room to press up against her back, laying his flesh hand on her stomach and waiting until she lays one of hers on top of his, and then he completes the circle and lays his other one, if with some hesitation, on top of hers. She pats it and then reaches up, threading her free hand through his hair behind his ear.

"Since we can't agree whether it's a boy or a girl, settling on a name might be difficult..." trailing off, he dips his head down, buries his nose in her hair while she cards her hand through his, "do you want to have a duel over it?"

" _Anakin_!" Padmé laughs, shaking her head and then tilts it back to catch his gaze. "What if we come up with a name each, for what we think it'll be?"

"Sounds good to me," he says, because it _does_ ; there's something attractive about that thought, and maybe he'll just spend tonight thinking about _that_ instead of trying to sleep. A sleep which, when it comes, is always disturbed anyway. "Sounds absolutely _perfect_ , in fact. You're a genius, Padmé."

And then he makes her shriek and laugh, trying to push him away as he plants kisses on her neck under her left ear since she's ticklish there.  
*******

He comes home with the Chancellor's words in his ears and frustration in his hands, behind his eyes, under his skin; but seeing Padmé sitting on the couch bent over a datapad and with that particular little frown between her eyebrows makes it all run off him, because it reminds him of something else entirely.

"Hello, Angel," he says and sits down beside her, snatching the datapad up and depositing a different one in her hands and her protest dies in confusion as she looks from the new datapad up at his face, cocking an eyebrow.

"What's this, Anakin? And give me that datapad back, please. I have work to do."

He can hear the warning tension in her voice, see it tighten around her eyes - _feel it_ , blooming up in the Force like an impending storm, and he drinks it all in and while he wouldn't want her to be Jedi, he suddenly wishes she was Force-sensitive enough at all times, because she's even _more_ beautiful like this, if that's possible.

"In a moment," he says, and points at the datapad, "what do you think? _Leia_." He knows he's mangled the Nubian pronunciation when her eyebrows knit up in consternation and then amusement, but she obligingly looks down at the datapad to where he's pointing, and repeats the name. Without mangling it goes without saying and it's one of the most beautiful things he's ever heard fall from her lips, right alongside 'I love you'.

" _Heart_?" she pauses, pursing her lips and mouths it again, slower, utterly silent this time, and he wishes she would say it out loud again, "... it's a good name. But why?"

Now, he has to swallow and shifts on the couch. He'd hoped she wouldn't ask, because he's not exactly willing to look too close at his own choice, but she's got a right to know. There's so many other things that are so hard to talk about, so this, at least...

"Because it means strength, and steadfastness. So she'll..." he pauses, feeling his jaw tighten up slowly but surely and, with some effort, lets go of it into the Force. Padmé's hand on his knee helps, "so she'll always know her way."

She stares at him for several moments, even opens her mouth, but then closes it again, laying a hand on her stomach. She wants to ask, wants to _push_ ; to understand. There's so much in that statement it makes her heart ache, and the baby shifts in response. But she doesn't.

"It's a good name," she says instead, repeating her earlier words, and leans in to kiss him.  
*******

Hours later, and Anakin is, of course, not sleeping.

He _was_ , but that ended like it usually does these days and he's only remaining in bed because Padmé has his arm trapped and he doesn't want to disturb her. So he's half up against the pillows, his other hand fisting rhythmically into the sheets and covers, and tries not to think. 

Padmé _had_ been sleeping, but something's been nagging at her, and she's floating, close to awareness, when a thought strikes her. It's been a vague half-decision since she brought up the question of names, and only intensified during the evening after he revealed his choice if it turns out to be a girl.

"... _Light_ ," she mutters, tightening her hold on the arm she's almost hugging to herself, and Anakin shifts beside her but doesn't speak, "what--- _Anakin_!" Twisting upright and clapping her hands over her face to shield it from the sudden stab of light as he used - she thinks, because she _felt something_ , like a breeze over her skin, right before it happened - the Force to turn on the lights.

"Turn it _off_ , Anakin!" she groans and presses her fingers to her eyes, colourful starbursts exploding behind her eyelids, and he's confused. She doesn't need to be looking at him to tell that he is, wouldn't even need this vague sense of... _whatever_ it is, that is now constant, to be able to tell.

The room plunges into darkness again, and Padmé sighs as she gives her face a last rub and then drops her hands to her stomach, now face to face with Anakin's annoyed and confused expression.

"You _said_ \---"

"I _meant_ 'what is _light_ '?" she snaps and then realises she's being unfair. Shakes her head and rubs her stomach as the baby twists, "I'm sorry, Anakin. I wasn't exactly awake when I had the thought. What is _light_?"

He's staring at her now, and she knows he understands what she means. He's also going to destroy these covers if he picks at them like that with his artificial hand, so she grabs it and lifts it up, feeling the resistance but keeps pulling until she can lay it on her stomach, her nightgown a silky barrier against the metal.

Why does she want--- no, he knows why she's asking; he picked a Nubian name, so she wants to pick a Tatooinian one. But that planet... it holds _nothing_ for him that he wants to keep, _or_ that he'd want to pass on, but she's merely trying to share with him and he's not sure if he can explain that he'd rather the child have a Nubian name no matter what it is.

But he can't refuse her, either. Not when she's sitting there, legs curled up under the covers, head tilted and the curls spilling all over her shoulders and down her back and over her breasts, her hand holding his prosthetic to her stomach and her eyes glittering in the faint light coming from the endless lights of night-time Coruscant outside.

"Depends... on what sort of light you mean," Anakin says finally, and she's... she admits, confused.

"It matters?" she asks, and she feels like she ought to know this already. There's so much they still don't know, but they'll have time, as soon as the war is over. 

"It does," he says, even _laughing_ , and curls falls into his eyes as he shakes his head. He finally also starts rubbing her stomach with his hand, so infinitely gentle, and she smiles up at him. "Twilight is different from dawn is different from the light at noon, Padmé. In the desert, it _matters_."

She thinks it through - if she's doing this, she should do it with the sort of due consideration it deserves - and at first she wants to say 'noon', but stops herself. Noon, the brightest, hottest time of day, where you can lay in the grass and feel the sunlight pour down on you and there's hardly any shadows to hide anything...

But no, in a desert, noon, she knows, is like blistering death, squeezing you dry. Remorseless and unforgiving.

Twilight... no. Even if it's different, twilight isn't right either.

"Something that warms," she says at last, catching his gaze and holding it, squeezing the hand underneath hers, trapped against her stomach, "that's gentle and gives you light to see by, so you can know where to go. Hope." 

Anakin is silent for a while, a faint thread of tension vibrating just under his skin and then he reaches out, cradling the side of her head and rubbing his fingers against her scalp.

" _Luke_ ," he says after another few silent moments, the name slow on his tongue like he hasn't spoken in forever, and, well, she knows he hasn't. Not this, anyway. "The light of the first sun, before the other one's up."

"It's a good name," she says, repeating what she'd said when he'd given her _Leia_ , and... after a moment, Anakin dips his head in a nod and while he's not smiling, her new not-sense gives her the feeling he's, reluctantly but honestly, happy.

"Because you chose it," he says and then he's practically crushing her against him, but she lets him. For a little while at least.

 *******  
("What about yours?" she whispers later; she's not sure _how_ much later, or if she's been dozing against his shoulder for a while, but she's now awake again and curious. He sighs, breath stirring her curls.

"... gift," he whispers back and then pauses, " _unexpected gift_." He shift against her and she can feel something coming and rubs her hands all over his back, following the dips, curves, scars and muscles.

"The sort you didn't know you wanted, didn't know would come, but you love it the second you see it," she says against his skin, and he tenses... and then relaxes again.

"Something like that. And what about _yours_?"

She smiles into the curve between his neck and shoulder, almost asleep again.

"It's the name of a flower... if you give it to someone it means _tenacity_."

Technically, of course, that's what the name of the flower means, but no one names their child _Padmé_ because it means _tenacity_ , they name their child Padmé because that's what the flower symbolises.

He laughs quietly into her hair, rubbing his nose in the curls and trails a hand down her bare arms.

"Show it to me the next time we're on Naboo."

Everything suddenly twists around her, she's falling and there's no bed, no floor, no _building_ ; only air and reddish, flickering heat. She shakes her head slowly and swallows back nausea, thinking that it's way too late in her pregnancy to be nauseous, and nods. She's tired. That's all.

"I could just get some here, you know." She knows what he's going to say to _that_ , and is smiling even before he's said a single word.

"That's not the _same_ , Angel."

Of course it's not.

She giggles, pressing her forehead to his broad shoulder, feels a tension underneath that calls back the flicker of hot red light, but closes her eyes against it. She's tired, it's late.

That's all.)


End file.
